


Diversion

by ignatzfan



Series: a very large modern au [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amnesia, Angst, Car Accidents, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sex Work, Injury Recovery, Loss of Parent(s), Love Confessions, Serious Injuries, Smoking, Swearing, Vomiting, fodlan is british again, these buddies need each other, theyre gonna be okay i promise, unrequited dimitri/ingrid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25721938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignatzfan/pseuds/ignatzfan
Summary: Diversion: the action of turning something aside from its intended course.Dimitri is involved in a car accident. Sylvain, Felix and Ingrid have their difficulties coping.Longggg CW list: car accidents, hospitals, traumatic injuries, alcoholism, referenced drug abuse, referenced domestic violence, referenced child abuse, referenced sex work, referenced familial homophobia, vomit, panic/anxiety attacks, smoking, food
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius
Series: a very large modern au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865713
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	Diversion

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to the angst factory
> 
> diversion is a follow up to my fic 'heavy days', set 3 or 4 years on from then. you don't need to read heavy days in order to understand this fic, but it might make it even more enjoyable! :) 
> 
> like heavy days, diversion is another prologue-ish fic for my future modern university/band au
> 
> there will be three parts in total, and a playlist at the end - if there are additional cw's to add when parts 2 and 3 are uploaded, i'll tag them in as i go (but honestly i don't really know what else is out there i could get LMAO these kids have it rough) 
> 
> its super angsty so please enjoy 
> 
> thank you to chrissy and claude for beta reading! 
> 
> find me on twitter @fhirdiad_ :)

Felix hates hospitals, especially this one. It’s been almost four years since he watched his mum wither away in a grubby old room, the colour draining from her face as she left her shell of a body behind. He was at school when she got admitted, but at least when he went to see her, he didn’t have to wait.

This time, he has to wait, and the waiting is insufferable.

Ingrid is in the chair next to his, leaning forward into her hands as she anxiously bounces her knee. His dad sits on his other side, straight-faced, one leg crossed over the other as he busies himself on his phone. Any passer-by would say he seems composed, but they wouldn’t know that he had to make Glenn pull over three times on the way here so he could throw up on the side of the road.

Sylvain and Glenn sit across from them, breaking the tense silence every now and then to chat with each other, even sharing a small laugh or two. Felix wonders if they understand what is going on right now. He’s not too sure if he’s able to process it himself. It was just a normal Friday.

This evening, Dimitri was in a massive car accident with his father and stepmother. Rodrigue is listed as an emergency contact, alongside Dimitri’s uncle, who is easily a day’s travel out in central Fódlan. Even though it was 10:30PM, Felix demanded that Ingrid and Sylvain come too. They were both wide awake anyway – Ingrid was at work and Sylvain was at a party, exactly as Felix had expected.

The hospital had contacted Edelgard, Dimitri’s stepsister, as well, but they couldn’t get through to her. She’s going to wake up to this. Felix’s stomach churns just thinking about that.

Patricia, Edelgard’s mother, was pronounced dead at the scene. Lambert and Dimitri are both in critical condition. The doctors said they are doing everything they can, but they should prepare themselves.

That’s what they said the last time he was here.

Ingrid straightens her back and stops bouncing her knee. Without looking, Felix instinctively offers his hand on the armrest between them. Instead of taking it, she wraps herself around his arm, squeezing him tight as she lays her head on his shoulder. Felix rests his head on hers and finds comfort in the overwhelmingly sweet strawberry scent of her shampoo.

Dimitri is gonna die. He’s totally gonna die. He’s seventeen years old and he’s going to die.

* * *

It’s not until 4AM that they can see Dimitri. The doctors said they performed an emergency surgery through the night because he had suffered ‘somewhat extensive’ brain trauma in the crash.

They had performed emergency surgery on Lambert as well, but he died on the table.

Hearing that Lambert had died brought up something in Sylvain – an unfamiliar emotion he’d never quite experienced before, and also vomit (the three or four beers he’d drank before leaving the party probably played a slight catalyst). He almost didn’t reach the toilets in time.

The three of them split off from Glenn and Rodrigue, who instead make their way to see Lambert’s body.

Shock still courses through Sylvain, and his hands twitch as he holds Felix’s and Ingrid’s on either side of him. They follow an intern through endless corridors until finally reaching their missing piece, Dimitri.

“He’s still sleeping from the surgery, but we are confident he will wake up,” the intern warns as he stands in front of the door. Ingrid tries desperately to look past him and through the door’s thin strip window. Felix hides behind Sylvain.

“He’s not in the best state. His appearance may be a bit shocking, so I suggest you prepare yourselves,” the intern continues, speaking directly to Sylvain, as if he’s their leader.

Sylvain feels his heart ache in his throat as the door creaks open. For a moment, nobody moves; hopelessly trying to wrap their minds around the sight in front of them, before finding the strength to step a foot across the threshold. Sylvain doesn’t feel he is quite ready to make that step, but he does it anyway, knowing that Ingrid and Felix will shuffle in behind him.

Honestly, he can’t even see Dimitri. A massive bandage wraps around his skull, securing a thick patch over his right eye. A large tube extends from the left side of his chest, and an even larger one is down his throat. The parts of his face that Sylvain can see are bruised and bulging, rendering him almost unrecognisable. His left eye is black and swollen, and his skin is covered in bruises and cuts of varying depths – some even have stitches.

Dimitri has large casts on both of his hands that reach over halfway up his forearms, with only the very tips of his fingers exposed at the ends. The rest of his body is under the covers, but it’s obvious that there’s some sort of cast on his left leg as well. He has multiple tubes and wires coming out of him, a couple snaking beneath the casts on his hands. His chest rises and falls slowly along to the rhythm of the ventilation machine. 

The three of them stand against the wall as they stare at Dimitri, the air around them filled only by the sounds of beeping hospital machines and their own shaky, unstable breaths.

“Um… are you all over eighteen?” The intern asks, flicking through papers on his clipboard.

“Yeah,” Felix answers, the word barely a croak as it leaves him.

Sylvain runs across to the bathroom door, barely making it to the toilet in time as he throws up again.

* * *

Ingrid wakes with a start as she senses someone enter Dimitri’s room – the doctor wasn’t noisy, but Ingrid is just about the lightest sleeper out there. She sits up from leaning on a sleeping Felix, who leans on a sleeping Sylvain. The pair of them do not stir as she moves, her muscles aching as she shifts on the rock-solid hospital sofa.

“You shouldn’t be here–“

“Shh,” Ingrid shushes the doctor as she rubs the sleep from her eyes, pulling her phone from her pocket. It’s Saturday, 1:15PM. No change in Dimitri, as far as she can tell. Sylvain and Felix let out small snores beside her.

“I’m one of the surgeons that worked on your friend’s case,” the doctor whispers, after only a brief pause, deciding whether to chuck the three of them out or not.

“How is he doing?” Ingrid asks on a sigh, walking to stand at the end of the bed, crossing her arms and rocking back and forth on her feet.

“He’s… stable,” the doctor begins, “The surgery was a success. I am still confident he will wake up.”

“And when he wakes up?” Ingrid asks, unable to rip her eyes off the giant tube forced down Dimitri’s throat.

“It depends on how he is,” the doctor explains reluctantly, tapping Ingrid’s arm and eyeing Sylvain and Felix, signalling her to step outside the room.

“With these sorts of injuries,” she continues as Ingrid pulls the door to, “We can never really know the patient’s level of brain function until they wake up.”

“You mean–“

“He could have permanent brain damage. He may not be self-sufficient anymore. He could be deaf or blind, or unable to speak. There are hundreds of possible outcomes.”

“Oh God,” Ingrid exhales, putting a hand on her chest and lifting her head to stop herself from crying, “Oh my God. Dimitri.”

Suddenly, Ingrid feels a hand on her back as someone looms over her, and she jumps on impact.

“Hey princess, it’s just me,” Glenn says, rubbing her arm in comfort as she steps back towards him. He looks as drained as she feels. She doesn’t have the energy to roll her eyes at his token nickname for her.

“What were his injuries?” Ingrid asks as she snaps back around to face the doctor again, wiping the tears from her eyes.

The doctor taps her clipboard against her palm and sighs, giving Ingrid a pensive look.

“I’m his sister,” Ingrid lies. Glenn taps her shoulder in approval, and she can sense his cheeky grin from behind her. The doctor looks her up and down before ultimately deciding to tell her, whether she fell for the lie or not.

“Your brother sustained a somewhat severe brain bleed during the crash. His chest and hands were crushed by some weight – he had one broken rib that punctured his lung, which is why there’s a small tube in his chest. The tube in his throat is ventilation, and we’ll keep him on it for a little while as he recovers from the surgery. For his hands, he had multiple fractures and breaks on his fingers and he has suffered severe nerve damage. He will struggle with control of his hands, but we don’t know the extent of that yet. His left leg–“

“Stop,” Ingrid whimpers, rubbing her temples, and she shakes Glenn’s hand from her shoulder, “Stop. Thank you. For telling me.”

The doctor nods.

“I have to run a few more checks,” she says, opening the door again, “We’re checking on him hourly.”

Ingrid sniffles and nods silently to the doctor as she enters Dimitri’s room. Pacing up and down the hallway, Ingrid bites the skin on her lip and her body shakes as thousands of thoughts and questions run through her mind.

What will happen to Dimitri now he has no parents? He’s still months away from turning eighteen. Will Edelgard stay with him? Will he have to move away to live with his uncle?

“Ingrid,” Glenn says as he steps in front of her, interrupting her thoughts and stopping her in her tracks.

She looks up at him through teary green eyes, and he seems to lose any words he had planned to say to her, instead opting to cup her cheek with one hand. At his touch, Ingrid throws her arms around his waist and holds herself tightly to him, her face pressed against his chest. Glenn’s black button up shirt smells like cigarettes, car fuel and some sort of expensive cologne. She sobs into him, and he gently holds her in his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head.

“What if he has brain damage?” Ingrid cries. “What if he doesn’t wake up?”

“It’s okay,” Glenn says through shushes as he strokes her hair, “Whatever happens, we will all get through it together.”

For a moment, Ingrid stops crying, and closes her eyes as she stands in Glenn’s embrace.

Glenn is Felix’s older brother, but somewhere along the line he became Ingrid, Sylvain and Dimitri’s older brother as well. Ingrid and Sylvain already have big brothers of their own, though neither of them are anything like Glenn.

In her eyes, Ingrid’s own family tale is so obnoxiously unfortunate its practically comedy. Her big brother, Toby, was born completely blind – a result of their mother’s lifelong cocaine addiction, which was also the cause of her abandoning the family when Ingrid was seven. Her dad picked up everything she dropped and raised the two of them well for four years, up until Ingrid’s mum begged him to let her come back, promising she had ‘fixed herself’.

So he did let her back, and for five more years things were okay. But just as Ingrid had adjusted to having her mother around again, she relapsed and left for a second time – not before managing to conveniently pop out two more babies, aged three and one when she ran away. And then her dad raised _four_ kids alone as best as he could until last year, when he started showing signs of Parkinson’s disease.

Even before her dad’s disease, even before her mother leaving again, Ingrid wore herself down to her bones for her family. Before his symptoms cropped up, Ingrid’s dad was a labourer, so they never had the largest income. Ingrid worked a paper round as soon as she was old enough and has been in several jobs over time since then, sometimes working two at once. Toby brings in some money with his guitar by busking or playing for local theatre shows, but it’s not enough to live on.

On top of earning, Ingrid manages to keep up great grades. She’s determined to make a success of herself – the rest of her family rely on her.

Ingrid makes money in whatever way she can. In recent years, ways she’s not all that proud of. Ways that even Felix, Sylvain and Dimitri don’t know about – even after the incident that got her expelled from their school at the end of Year 11, relocating to an all-girls college. The thought of them finding out makes her stomach flip. Every penny counts.

That’s why she’s even more appreciative now when Glenn, twenty-five years old with stubble and bags under his eyes and a stable income, offers to pick her younger siblings up from school. Or drive her and her father to his physiotherapy sessions. Or shows her a sneaky trick to get a wash out of the laundrette’s junky old machines without having to pay. Or just slips her a couple of notes each time he sees her.

They have always been especially close with Rodrigue too, particularly after Felix’s mother passed. Sylvain, Ingrid and Dimitri would spend more time at the Fraldarius house, often going to have dinners together, because their table felt too empty without her. Dimitri would bring Lambert along, too.

Dimitri’s family was the most perfect, at least compared to the other three. His mother passed during childbirth, and Lambert raised his son alone up until six years ago, when he and Patricia got married. Edelgard is only six months older than Dimitri, but she is such a big sister to him – protective, fun, and she loves nothing more than embarrassing him. Dimitri cherishes her. It was as if they were fated to be siblings.

“Why did it have to be Dimitri? Why _his_ family?” Ingrid asks with her eyes still closed, her voice shaking as she speaks.

“He’ll wake up,” Glenn says as he soothes her, repeating the line a few times as if to manifest it.

* * *

Kicking at stray rocks of gravel on the pavement, Felix takes a final drag of his cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs like it’s second nature until he needs to let his breath go. Exhaling through his nostrils, he scans the hospital car park – bleak, packed full of cars, and the line where the road ends blends with the line where the grey sky begins.

It’s 5PM. It will get dark soon. Felix stubs his cigarette butt out under his shoe and rolls his neck, his bones cracking with the motion.

Sliding his hands into his leather jacket pockets, he sighs and drags his feet on the ground as he makes his way over to their hatchback – it started out as Glenn’s car, but Rodrigue sold his off, and then Felix learnt to drive (and Glenn’s car is much nicer than the hunk of metal Felix could scrape the money together for, so he likes to drive it whenever he can sneak the chance).

As he approaches, Felix catches sight of his dad sprawled out on the back seats, fast asleep with his jaw gracelessly hanging open, loosely cradling a half empty bottle of whisky to his chest.

 _Could be worse_ , he thinks. And then he sees another bottle, entirely empty, laying on the car floor.

Balling a fist at his side, Felix uses the other to knock repetitively on the window.

“Dad,” he says, his dad waking with a snort on the other side of the glass.

Rodrigue grunts in response as he stiffly pushes himself up, stretching a leg to unlock the car by pressing his heel against the latch. Opening the door, Felix crouches in front of it, resting his elbows on his knees as he stares up at his father, who rubs his forehead as he leans back against the door on the opposite side.

“Dad,” Felix repeats, his tone much sterner, trying his hardest to bite his tongue.

“Lambert is dead,” Rodrigue grumbles, his eyes down and his face pale.

“I know,” Felix says in a low tone, sympathetically.

He picks up Rodrigue’s boots from the car floor in front of him. As he loosens the laces, Felix signals with a hand for Rodrigue to raise his other foot, and on a sigh, he does. Despite Rodrigue’s drunken obstinance, Felix adamantly hooks each boot onto his father’s feet in silence, tightly tying the laces all the way to the top.

“Dimitri?” Rodrigue asks, slurring his name, as he tucks his half-emptied bottle of whisky between the seat and his side.

“He’s still out,” Felix responds, slipping his hands into his jean pockets as he stands up again. Rodrigue closes his eyes and gives a vacant nod in response, and then he slumps his head to rest against the car seat. Felix tuts.

It wasn’t always like this. It never used to be _this_ bad. Felix can’t recall exactly where along the line his father’s drinking habits spun so out of control, but he knows it wasn’t always this bad.

It’s only like this when things are awful. He does it to cope. He found something that takes the pain away. It won’t be this bad next time. He’ll do better next time.

Felix is running out of patience right when he might need it the most.

“I’m sorry, Fe,” Rodrigue slurs as his son stares him down through disapproving eyes.

“No, you’re not,” Felix rejects through his scowl, “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t do it.”

A short string of inebriated grumbles and groans comes out of Rodrigue in pathetic attempt to defend himself as he readjusts to sit up properly.

“Give me the keys,” Felix says bluntly, kneeling on the seat as he bends into the car with an arm out towards his father. Rodrigue stares blankly at the back of the passenger seat in front of him as he digs into his jean pocket and plants the car keys in his son’s hand.

Rodrigue’s face is flat and lifeless, the wrinkles on the sides of his eyes hardly visible as his skin sits expressionless atop his sharp cheekbones. It reminds Felix of when his mother died.

Part of his anger is melted away by guilt, and somewhere in him a strange urge crops up to tuck his dad’s dishevelled hair back off his face. He quickly decides against it, instead reaching across his chest to fasten his seatbelt for him, leaving him with an impassive tap on his shoulder before climbing back out and shutting the door.

Sinking into the driver’s seat, Felix pulls his phone out to update Glenn.

**_Felix:_ ** _Dads pissed  
I’m gonna take him home_

**_Glenn:_ ** _Ffs, ok  
Me and sylvain are gonna get mcdonalds for everyone _

**_Felix:_ ** _Ok get my burger for me I’ll be back in time_

Felix leans back against the head rest, holding his cold fingers over his eyes in attempt to wake them up. He adjusts the seat slightly, buckles himself in, and sets the key in ignition. The familiar thrum of the engine is a reassuring sensation on Felix’s body. He glances in the rear-view mirror at his father, who has his forehead pressed on the glass, staring drearily out the window at the dull expanse. The half full bottle of whisky rests against his side.

“Give me that bottle,” Felix says bluntly, throwing a hand between the front seats without taking his eyes off the road. Rodrigue passes him the bottle wordlessly, and Felix tosses it on the passenger seat beside him.

They drive about half of the journey in silence before Rodrigue breaks it.

“You’ve not got your glasses, Felix,” he says in a monotone voice, stumbling through the sentence.

“It’s fine,” Felix says with a shake of his head, “It’s not that far a drive. We’re almost home.”

Rodrigue manages to let out a low hum in response.

* * *

The air outside grows colder and soft winds pick up as the moon starts to rise in the grey sky. Sylvain and Glenn walk side by side on the pavement, each with a cigarette in hand, headed to the nearby 24-hour McDonald’s a little way up the main hospital street. In his other hand, Sylvain fumbles trying to text back someone who is typing much faster than him (especially with one hand).

“I was supposed to meet someone tonight,” Sylvain says after a sigh.

“Oh, yeah? Who’s the lucky girl?” Glenn asks with an eyebrow raise, taking a drag as he eyes Sylvain from the side.

Sylvain meets his gaze with a palpable look as he slips his phone into his back pocket, only for it to buzz again once he’s put it away. He doesn’t take it out to check the notification.

“Lucky _guy_?!” Glenn digs on an exhale of smoke, and he flashes Sylvain his wide grin as he elbows him between his ribs.

“Yeah, well,” Sylvain mumbles, and he takes a drag between his words, “Not so lucky anymore.”

“You tell your parents yet?”

“Are you kidding?” Sylvain scoffs, “That’s literally a one-way ticket to the streets. You know how easily my dad chucked my brother out and just forgot he ever existed. And for the record, I’m pretty sure he’d see me swinging both ways as worse than Miklan being a fucking junkie.”

Glenn lets out a soft chuckle. “You could stay with us, you know.”

“I’m not ready for that yet,” Sylvain says, shaking his head in dismissal, “Him kicking me out, I mean. Disowning me. I need to finish school first. Get to uni. Then it doesn’t matter.”

“Your dad’s a fucking asshole,” Glenn laughs as he nonchalantly throws his cigarette butt over his shoulder into the road.

Sylvain mirrors his action, tossing the end of his cig behind him as he releases his last exhale of smoke. “Yeah, I know.”

As the pair arrive and push through the doors, Sylvain’s phone rings for a call. He slides it out of his pocket, praying it’s not the guy he was meeting with, and is slightly relieved to see his mum’s caller ID lighting the screen instead.

He looks to Glenn as his phone buzzes, who nods and simply responds, “Take it, I’ve got it.”

Sylvain sits at a shoddy wooden table outside as he picks up the call.

“Hey, Mum,” he answers.

“Hi, honey,” his mother says through the phone, “How are you getting on?”

“Oh, you know, it’s…” Sylvain stumbles, and then sighs. “He’s still not awake yet. His dad and step-mum died.”

“I’m sorry, love,” she says, in a sympathetic tone, “Dimitri was always such a lovely boy.”

Sylvain scoffs as he scratches a stain off his jeans. “Yeah.”

A brief silence falls between them, long enough for Sylvain to get caught up in his thoughts. He’s always spent more time out of the house than in, and that’s taken a toll on his relationship with his mum. She wouldn’t think so, but from Sylvain’s side, his mother barely knows him.

As far as blood relations go, Sylvain would say he feels the strongest attachment to his granddad. He lost his wife before Sylvain was born, and both of his mother’s parents passed when he was young as well. Throughout his childhood, Sylvain would often stay overnight at his house, and even lived with him for a period of months while the Miklan ordeal was going on. It was perfect, living with him.

One time, when he returned to his parent’s house, Sylvain begged them for a week straight to let him live with his granddad permanently. He decided to let it go after his father beat him for it and told him he was just fine where he was.

At that time, Sylvain’s big brother was still around. Miklan used to hurt him sometimes, too, because he was bigger and stronger and eight years older than Sylvain was. But when his drug abuse spiralled out of control, he grew weaker than Sylvain was, and he never really did it anymore, because he’d always end up worse off.

Even then, at least in Sylvain’s eyes, Miklan only hurt him because he was angry, or he was off his head, or it’s what he saw their dad do. More often, Miklan would try to protect Sylvain – especially when he was much younger. Miklan had it worse than Sylvain. To this day, Sylvain grips on to any last way that he can protect his brother in return. They’re still in contact, secretly, albeit not that often, and, admittedly, only when Miklan wants something from him.

Sylvain hopes that if he believes in Miklan hard enough, he’ll be able to pull himself together again. And then he realises he cannot recall a single time in his life that Miklan ever had it together to begin with.

Although his mum is far dearer to him than his dad, Sylvain will always hold underlying resentment for her inability to intervene. She never even stepped in when Miklan was kicked out – sure, he made mistakes, but who doesn’t?

He was her son – he still is her son, no matter how much she tries to act like he’s dead – and she raised him and loved him. Why couldn’t she protect him?

Once, when he was small, Sylvain asked his mother if his father hurts her like he hurts him and Miklan – and he immediately regretted it. She was defensive, angry and dismissive, and constantly repeated that she loves him. But, Sylvain remembers, she never really said yes or no.

And it was alright if Sylvain’s dad hurts him and his brother, she used to say, because it will only make them stronger, and she would be there to patch them up again. There was no need to tell anyone.

It didn’t take Sylvain long to answer his own question.

“Mum–“

“Sylvie,” his mum speaks at the same time, “I was calling to tell you to not come home tonight.”

“Huh?”

“Your father is… He’s… not in the best mood. Come home tomorrow, honey.”

“Are you okay? I can–”

“Sylvain,” she says sternly, raising her voice slightly, “It’s okay, baby. Stay with Felix.”

“What are you–“

“Your friends will need you, right? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She hangs up the phone before Sylvain can protest again. He pulls his phone down from his ear, staring at the hang up screen as it fades.

On a scoff, Sylvain opens his contact list, scrolling down to call his granddad. A message pops up at the top of the screen.

**_Mum:_ ** _Do not hassle your grandfather about this  
Love you and see you tomorrow_

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Sylvain resists every urge to throw his phone on the ground and watch it shatter.

Sylvain is bigger and older now. He could fight back. He could tell anyone. He could report him. But he doesn’t, because she loves him.

Even though he doesn’t have the brightest perception on what it means to love, Sylvain wonders how it could be possible to be in love with such a monster.

“Fuck it!” Sylvain hisses as he slams the bottom of his fist on the wooden table two, three times. Glenn comes out, precariously balancing three bags of food and a cardboard tray of drinks, just in time to catch sight of that.

“Ouch,” he says, and Sylvain shakes his hand off as he meets Glenn’s eyes from over his shoulder, “Guy trouble?”

Sylvain scoffs. “Something like that.”

He stands to takes half of the food from Glenn’s arms, and the stinging begins to set in.

“You’re bleeding,” Glenn says, shaking stray hairs from his face as he raises his eyebrows at Sylvain.

“Good thing we’re going to a hospital,” Sylvain replies nonchalantly as he turns from him and starts walking away. Glenn runs a couple steps to catch him up.

“You okay, Sylvie?” He presses, tilting his head as he tries to read his expression. Sylvain does not look at him.

“It’s fine,” he persists as he speeds ahead. Glenn consistently matches his speed.

They remain in silence for the rest of the walk, and they get back to the hospital considerably faster than their first journey.

“You know?” Sylvain starts, stopping in his tracks as they stand in the hospital’s main entrance, “I would trade literally all of my blood relatives to bring Dimitri’s dad back.”

Glenn stops and purses his lips as he turns to face him, a rueful look in his eyes. His gaze soon drifts to something – someone – behind Sylvain, as the sound of heels clacking against the tile flooring comes to a halt. Sylvain turns around.

“Edelgard,” he says with an ill-fitting grin as he meets her cheerless eyes, “You want a McChicken?”

“Lambert is dead?” Edelgard asks, her voice trembling as it leaves her.

* * *

**_Ingrid:_ ** _Hey, I won’t be able to make it tonight bc my friend is in the hospital. He’s in bad shape.  
Is it okay to reschedule?_

**_Jacob:_ ** _Sure  
Can u send me some pics tho?  
I can paypal u the money _

Ingrid scoffs as she locks her phone and chucks it in front of her on the bed. She leans forward, resting her head in her hands and closing her eyes as she lets out a heavy sigh. Laying her head flat on the bed, her eyes linger up to Dimitri – still sleeping, but he’s been taken off ventilation now, and the doctors say he can breathe fine for himself. His face is still terribly misshapen. Ingrid’s heart aches at the sight of him.

“How did we get here?” She asks him out loud, knowing she will receive no response. She’s not quite sure if she’s referring to her own situation or Dimitri’s.

Ingrid is still wearing her work uniform from Friday night, when the boys picked her up straight from her job at the supermarket. That’s her only job right now, and they’ve already approved her for compassionate leave for two weeks, which is pretty flexible in comparison to other jobs she’s worked.

Two weeks is too long to go without earning. She picks her phone up off the bed again.

****

**_Ingrid:_ ** _That’s fine, £25_

She leans back in her chair, and her lean quickly turns into a huge stretch, her bones popping and her muscles aching. When she relaxes, she slumps down in the chair, her arms casually hanging over the armrests on both sides.

The rhythmic beeps of the medical machines drill into Ingrid’s brain so much she thinks they’ll ring in there forever. Since the moment they could see Dimitri, Ingrid has barely left his bedside. It’s as if she physically can’t bring herself to move from him.

A part of her has genuinely started believing that if she wills it enough, Dimitri will wake up.

“Why you?” She whispers, leaning forward again, and she lays her head back down on the hospital bed.

Dimitri was the gentlest and most innocent of the four of them. The least fucked by life, as Sylvain likes to put it. He was the sweetest, the softest, the one that needed the most protection, and he provided the brightest smiles and greatest love in return.

Ever since she got to know him, Ingrid has always felt something… extra towards Dimitri. At least, she feels differently for him than she does for Sylvain or Felix. Perhaps she’s in denial of what that feeling might be.

Maybe when they were younger, they would have stood a chance. But now she is dirty, and he is still clean.

Dimitri would never love her now.

_Love?_

_Yes,_ she thinks, and her heart sinks when she does, _I suppose it could be love._

It doesn’t matter. It can stay in her mind. Nobody needs to know.

If she said it out loud right now, nobody would know. Her cheeks flush as that thought crosses her mind.

Ingrid holds her eyes closed for a moment to get rid of her tears. They roll sideways across her face and leave small stains on the bedsheet where she rests her head. When she opens her eyes, she looks up at Dimitri again, his breath rising and falling steadily without a falter.

It is just the two of them right now. She could say anything she wanted to say to him.

“I know that… we all look after you,” Ingrid says, “But you are so strong, in different ways to us.”

“A strength you have that we don’t is that you’d never hurt anyone,” she chuckles to herself, “You’d never hurt even a fly. Whereas, the rest of us…”

As her words trail, she lifts one of her arms and gently meets one of Dimitri’s barely exposed fingertips with her own.

“I love you, Dimitri. Please wake up.”

* * *

“Come on, Dad, pick your feet up,” Felix nags as he supports his father up the front path of their house. Rodrigue grunts in response, and gives his best attempt as steadying himself against his son as the two of them make it through the doorway.

Felix slams his keys down on the entryway side table, leaning on it for a moment of rest, taking a deep breath as his father still hangs on an arm around his neck.

“Felix, I’m sorry,” he grumbles in his ear.

“Shut it,” Felix snaps, hoisting his grip on his dad’s waist as he takes him into the living room.

Practically dragging Rodrigue around the room, Felix manages to guide him to the front of the sofa and gladly drops him down on the seat.

“What is wrong with you?!” Felix shouts, angrily waving a hand as he catches his breath. Rodrigue stares blankly, as if he sees straight through his son standing directly in front of him, _over_ him, and he opens his mouth to respond, but no words come out.

Untying his bun, Felix runs his hands through his hair as he paces in the gap between the sofas. He is silent, but he is seething – and at the same time he feels sorry; guilty. Guilty that he can’t deal with him any better than this. Guilty that he’s not like Glenn.

Felix stops, lightly hops on his heels for a moment as he thinks, and takes off upstairs to retrieve Rodrigue’s bedding. He bundles up his pillows and sheets and quickly carries them down the stairs, when he knocks a picture off the wall with his shoulder. Stopping on the stairway, he looks at the downturned frame. Even from the backside, he knows what photo this is – a picture of Felix, Glenn, and their mother, taken at one of Glenn’s junior touring car racing tournaments five or six years before she passed. The glass is most likely smashed.

If Felix believed in loved ones looking down on him from Heaven and all that crap, he’d probably take this as a sign from his mum to be gentler.

With a small huff, he rips his eyes away from the downturned frame and makes his way down the rest of the stairs. As he comes around to the front of the sofa again, he chucks the sheets at Rodrigue, who flinches behind the impact. Felix hurriedly, and silently, packs the pillows up comfortably for his father, and then takes off into the kitchen.

Hopping on his feet impatiently, Felix fills a tall glass with water and leaves it on the countertop as he searches each cupboard for pills.

“Felix,” Rodrigue calls out from the other room, as Felix slams a cupboard door.

“Yeah, Dad,” Felix shouts back in response. He finally comes across their tub of tablets and picks out the box of aspirin, popping two pills out of the packet.

“I can’t get… my shoes,” Felix overhears Rodrigue’s words trailing as he makes his way back into the living room, “I can’t… take my shoes off.”

Rodrigue is bent over, fruitlessly trying to untie his shoelaces, mumbling complaints and swear words as he continues to struggle. On a sigh, Felix leaves the glass of water and the tablets on the side table, and crouches down in front of his father.

“I got it, Dad,” Felix says gingerly as he bats his dad’s hands away, “I got you.”

As Felix unties his laces, Rodrigue slowly sits up again. Felix jumps up with his boots and drops them in the porch, swiftly returning in front of his dad, standing with his hands on his hips as he reads his expression.

Felix has pretty much mastered this now. His dad’s gonna puke.

Darting into the kitchen, Felix reaches into the cupboard under the sink, and takes out the small garden bucket that they keep under there. He quickly makes his way back to Rodrigue and passes the bucket into his lap, and Rodrigue holds it loosely as he hangs his head over it.

As he throws up, Felix pulls his hair off his face and holds it at the back of his head. He grimaces as he stands over his dad, the sound and stink of his vomit making himself feel nauseous too. The moment he finishes, Felix indifferently drops his hair and speeds off back into the kitchen as Rodrigue sputters and catches his breath.

Felix heads straight for the store cupboard in the far corner of the room and picks up one of the storage crates they keep there. He moves like a hurricane around the counters, collecting every bottle of alcohol in the building. By the time he’s done, the crate is full to the brim.

He grabs the back-door keys from the shelf they reside on, hastily unlocks the door, and makes his way over to the grotty shed in the garden, locking the crate of alcohol in there. The glass bottles clink loudly against each other as he drops it.

Sniffing his running nose, Felix returns to his father, and begrudgingly empties and rinses the bucket out in the bathroom. After shoving it on the floor by Rodrigue’s feet, Felix stands in front of him as he ties his hair up in his usual bun again. Neither of them says a word. For a moment, Felix pauses with his hands on his waist, looking Rodrigue up and down in disdain as he continues to stare blankly.

Before leaving, Felix turns around and grabs the TV controller, leaving it beside the glass of water and aspirin on the side table.

“I’m going,” he says, walking away from Rodrigue a final time and making his way to the front door.

“Felix,” Rodrigue calls from the living room as Felix picks up his keys again.

“Yeah,” he responds after a sigh. He doesn’t turn around.

“Don’t drive without your glasses,” Rodrigue’s voice trails.

Felix smiles to himself as he opens the drawer of the entryway table, grabbing his glasses case before tearing off out of the house again.

* * *

Sylvain sits on a chair, nonchalantly spreading his legs in the corridor outside Dimitri’s room, blissfully munching away on one of his two cheeseburgers. He’s thankful to finally consume something that isn’t hospital jelly.

Ingrid sits facing him picking at her McChicken, and Glenn is sat eating beside her. Edelgard is in Dimitri’s room. The blinds are shut.

“Eat it,” Sylvain says, kicking Ingrid’s shin from across the corridor, “It’s weird seeing you with no appetite.”

“You’re manspreading,” Ingrid gripes with a glare as she takes a bite from her burger.

“I have long legs,” Sylvain teases, and Glenn chuckles before attempting to intervene. Just as Ingrid is about to throw her food across the hallway at Sylvain, Felix appears.

“You’re manspreading,” Felix groans on arrival as he nudges Sylvain’s thigh with a bony knee, shuffling through the food bag he nicked from his brother.

Ingrid lets out a petty, “Ha,” and sticks her tongue out. Sylvain stubbornly crosses one leg over the other.

“What’s the damage?” Glenn reluctantly asks Felix, sticking a hand out for him to return his keys.

“Bad,” Felix responds, placing the keys in his brother’s hand and slumping down in the seat at Sylvain’s side, “It’s… bad.”

Glenn nibbles on his fries one by one as he and Felix exchange a series of looks, as if they are communicating telepathically, complete with the Fraldarius-family-patented head shakes and eye rolls.

“Somehow, I think this is gonna be worse than when Mum died,” Felix says, and he takes a huge bite of his burger. Glenn’s eyes bore into the ground as he chews vacantly.

Sylvain’s eyes dart between the two brothers, desperately wanting to say anything that could bring them comfort or advice. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times to speak, but he replaces his lack of words with his food, leaving the four in silence.

Unfortunately, this was not an unusual way for them to cope with their troubles. Sylvain, Felix, Ingrid and Dimitri collectively have that _‘I wish I could say something that will magically solve all your worries, but I can’t give you the kind of words you need right now, so at least I’ll sit here eating McDonald’s and mettle through it with you’_ kind of friendship. It’s an untouchable bond, and it works for all of them.

At least, from what Sylvain can tell, it works for all of them. He hopes that it’s strong enough to mettle through Dimitri’s accident, too, since he’s always been the glue that holds them together.

As Sylvain sits and ponders his thoughts, Dimitri’s door suddenly swings open, and Edelgard stands small in the doorframe with an alert expression on her face.

“He’s waking up,” she says, breathlessly, without a smile or a frown, “Dimitri’s waking up.”

The four in the corridor look at her in shock for a brief moment, stunned, before Sylvain jumps up out of his seat, and the other three follow soon after.

Every nerve in Sylvain’s body stands on edge as he takes the six or seven steps into Dimitri’s room. He feels Ingrid take his hand from behind him, and in that moment, he realises how quickly he had tensed up. His heartbeat thumps in his whole body as he approaches the bedside. Ingrid stands beside him, and Felix and Glenn mirror their positions on the opposite side. Edelgard rests her hands on the foot of the bed.

Dimitri is groggy, and he weakly runs his tongue between dry lips as he comes to. Through heavy blinks, he slowly raises his gaze until finally, _finally_ , he looks up at Sylvain.

And his one exposed eye widens, as if he’s… in fear?

Sylvain can’t quite predict the meaning behind his expression. Dimitri hurriedly tries to shift himself up, and Sylvain hesitantly reaches towards him, gently putting his hands on his shoulders.

“Get off me!” Dimitri shouts, lifting his arms as if to shield himself, and Sylvain backs off immediately.

“Just… don’t try to sit up,” he says, attempting to be as soft as possible, though he can’t shake the discomfort and uneasiness he feels due to Dimitri’s disoriented reaction.

In stark contrast to his wooziness some seconds ago, Dimitri is alert – panicked, even. His eye flits between the faces of those surrounding him, circling from Sylvain to Ingrid, from Ingrid to Edelgard, from Edelgard to Glenn, and finally, from Glenn to Felix.

“Felix,” Dimitri says with evident relief in his voice, and he relaxes somewhat, easing the tension in his body.

Felix stands further away than the others, closer to the wall than the bed, and his arms are crossed over his chest. Sylvain can tell he’s trying to conceal the upset grimace on his face. It’s not working.

“Felix,” Dimitri repeats, weakly waving a heavily-casted arm, “Come here. Please.”

Cautiously, Felix steps closer to his bedside, shuffling in front of Glenn, who firmly squeezes his brother’s shoulders as he reads the apprehension on his face.

Managing a small smile, Felix lays one of his hands on Dimitri’s upper arm, careful not to touch anywhere that hurts, the tips of his fingers slipping beneath the sleeve of his hospital gown.

“Hey,” he says, and Sylvain struggles to read his face as well.

“Felix,” Dimitri repeats after a rough swallow, and he lifts his other arm to pull Felix in closer, “Who are these people?”

Felix furrows his brow, quickly glancing up at Sylvain and Ingrid before looking down at Dimitri again.

“What?”

* * *

Ingrid’s heart catches in her throat the second Dimitri’s words fall from his lips. She desperately wants to say something, get closer to him, _touch_ him, but she’s terrified to spook him even further. Squeezing Sylvain’s hand, she tugs on his arm, but he does not turn to meet her eyes. He does not take his eyes off Dimitri.

“It’s Ingrid and Sylvain,” Felix says, tapping his hand where it rests on Dimitri’s arm, “And here’s Glenn, and Edelgard, your sister.”

“Edelgard…” Dimitri says blankly, staring at her at the foot of the bed, and then his blank expression fades into a tender one. A small smile creeps upon his face as he repeats her name with warmth, “Edelgard.”

Edelgard releases a sob she must have been holding on to as she rushes towards Dimitri’s side, impetuously pushing past Ingrid and Sylvain on her way. The pair of them have no choice but to back further away, and Sylvain finally looks down to Ingrid. She can see the upset stewing in his eyes.

“I’m here,” Edelgard says, reassuring Dimitri as she strokes his cheek with the back of her hand, “It’s me. It’s all going to be okay.”

“I’m, uh,” Glenn starts as he heads over to Ingrid and Sylvain, “I’m gonna go find a doctor or something.”

After their synced nods in response, Glenn begins to walk away, but he turns back around before reaching the door. He stands in front of them, his brows upturned as he rubs their arms with each of his hands in consolation.

“He doesn’t recognise us,” Ingrid whispers beneath Edelgard and Dimitri’s chatter, her eyes low, fixated on Glenn’s chest.

Glenn shuts his eyes for a moment as he takes a heavy breath. “I know,” is all he can manage to say.

As Glenn leaves the room, Sylvain moves for the first time in a while; with a sigh, he lets go of Ingrid’s hand, and walks to the bed again. He bends forward, leaning his weight on his hands at Dimitri’s side. By now, Felix is squatting down on the floor, his chin a little higher than level with the bedside – his hand has not moved from Dimitri’s arm, but he seems to be avoiding looking at him as much as possible.

“Dimitri,” Sylvain says breathily, a sense of desperation in his voice, “It’s me, man. Sylvain?”

Staring blankly, Dimitri gives a small shake of his head.

“Come on,” Sylvain scoffs, and he raises his voice slightly, “Come on! Do you know what happened?”

Ingrid steps closer, her intuition telling her to step in. “Don’t,” she says, only loud enough for Sylvain to hear.

“I’m… sorry,” Dimitri says, and as Ingrid lays eyes on him, she can see he’s visibly upset, “I have no idea who you are.”

“Dimitri!” Sylvain says frustratedly, almost a shout, and he slams a fist against the mattress – gently, as if he decided in the last moment to take it back, but it was too late. Dimitri flinches, and Felix flinches a little as well. Edelgard glares at him.

“Sylvain,” Ingrid says, matching the volume of Sylvain’s voice, and she puts a firm hand on his shoulder. As Sylvain hangs his head, shaking it in disbelief, Ingrid looks across to Felix, who returns her uneasy glance.

“Get out!” Dimitri yells in distress, swinging his arm in attempt to hit him, “You two, get out! Right now!”

Felix winces as he crouches at Dimitri’s bedside, his gaze entirely focused on the ground now.

“What exactly are you playing at?” Edelgard hisses, her eyes furious as she stands up straight and inches closer to Sylvain.

Ingrid tugs on Sylvain’s arm to pull him away, but his focus turns to Edelgard as she closes in on him – exactly as Ingrid would expect. He lets out a petty, almost dirty laugh, and says in a taunting voice, “Oh, see? It’s alright for you, he _knows_ you. How can he not know us?”

Edelgard doesn’t say a word back to him.

“Stop it,” Ingrid says as she pulls him away, his body offhandedly following her drags.

As he involuntarily backs out of Dimitri’s room, Sylvain shouts, “We’re more family to him than you’ve ever been!”

Ingrid hears the door slam shut. Sylvain paces back and forth in front of the blinded window.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Ingrid says, seething behind her words, cautious of her volume in the hospital corridor, “I don’t get even a second to process how I feel about what’s happening, because I have to reign _you_ in!”

Sylvain chuckles joylessly and sits on the edge of a chair with his head in his hands, gripping his hair in his fingers.

“Would it kill you to behave for once?” Ingrid continues to berate him, “You always, _always_ make everything so much worse than it already is! Dimitri doesn’t know who you are right now, and that’s the first image you want to give him of yourself? Don’t you think I’m upset too?”

She bites her tongue as Sylvain lifts his head to look up at her, tears streaming down his cheeks. Clenching her jaw, Ingrid focuses on her breathing for a moment to search deep, _deep_ within herself to fight the urge to keep chastising him.

Taking one, two small steps closer to Sylvain, she says in a placid voice, “Listen. He probably knows Felix because they were friends through their dads way before he met us at school. Maybe it’ll come back in some time, and this will all be just… well… a bad memory.”

Sylvain just stares dejectedly into space, and with a slight shake of his head, he hoists his body up again, kicking his feet on the floor as he walks away from Ingrid. She decides to wait until he is a little bit away before following him, sliding her hands into her pockets as she skips to keep up.

Lighting a cigarette before he’s even out of the building, Sylvain disappears out of sight around the corner of the entrance doors. Ingrid follows in his direction, and it doesn’t take her long to find him sitting on a metal bench, his limbs sprawled as he leans his head back and shuts his eyes.

He’s taken his hoodie off, and now sits in the cold in a loose white tank top, exposing practically his entire chest and the numerous tattoos that decorate his skin, the contours of his jaw, neck and collarbones accentuated under the moonlight.

 _There’s no point in even wearing the raggy thing_ , Ingrid thinks to herself as she perches next to him, cautious to leave some distance between them.

Sylvain laughs to himself between drags, and his chest sinks deeper than usual as he exhales the smoke. Ingrid’s eyes drift to one of his tattoos – the word ‘happy’, printed in block capital letters in the centre of his chest like a brand.

A faint, melancholy smile appears on her face as she recalls the day he got it. It was an impulse decision (most things are, with Sylvain), only a year or so ago on his eighteenth birthday, his first tattoo, and he got three new ear piercings as well.

He got it to remind himself to be happy, he said. Although Ingrid always thought that, with its placing, it reads normally to those in front of him, but upside down for himself. So, how could that be much of a helpful reminder?

 _Quite the metaphor for Sylvain as a person_ , she thinks.

“I’m sorry,” Ingrid says, cutting the silence, “I shouldn’t have been so harsh.”

Sylvain turns his head to the left, opening his eyes to meet Ingrid’s. “I’m sorry too.”

As he takes a drag, Sylvain lifts his other arm from the bench, cocking his head to invite Ingrid to lean into him, and she does. Cuddling Sylvain is soothing and familiar, no matter how old they get.

Although he drives her up the wall sometimes, Ingrid can’t imagine any part of her life without him. It’s not quite a sibling bond, but there’s nothing there romantically either – he’s family, he’s her person, and she knows he sees her the same way as well.

“You’re freezing,” she says, reaching across him for his hoodie.

“I like the feeling,” Sylvain responds with a headshake, holding her wrist and diverting her arm to hang loosely around his waist.

Looking up at the night sky, entirely void of stars, Ingrid releases a heavy sigh.

“I wanna get pissed,” Sylvain says, as if reading her mind.

“Me too,” she tuts, “But we can’t. Felix.”

Sylvain groans, and says sarcastically, “Felix doesn’t drink. You don’t smoke. Dimitri doesn’t do anything. How are we supposed to support each other like this?”

The pair laugh together, the first real laugh Ingrid has had since this entire ordeal began, albeit just a small one. As her grin fades, she holds herself tighter against Sylvain, and he slowly rubs the palm of his hand up and down her back over her uniform fleece.

“I was gonna go meet that guy tonight,” Sylvain says, “Alex. But I couldn’t, cos I’m here, and I didn’t even tell him about Dimitri and stuff. I just blew him off.”

“Why?” Ingrid asks with a furrowed brow, shifting to look up at him.

Sylvain shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t want him to try and get all involved and ask me if I’m okay and say he’ll be there if I need anything and all that shit.”

“You mean,” Ingrid laughs, “You didn’t want to be emotionally vulnerable because you think it would turn him off.”

“Ouch,” Sylvain scoffs, inhaling smoke from his cig, “But yeah… Yeah.”

Ingrid shuts her eyes as she nuzzles closer into him. “A couple hours ago, I took pics in my underwear in Dimitri’s hospital bathroom for this guy to send me £25.”

“Man,” Sylvain laughs as he exhales.

“You could literally see my work uniform on the floor in the mirror,” Ingrid adds, laughing with him in self-deprecation.

Suddenly, she sits up to face Sylvain, and the thought crosses her mind to open up more to him about… all that. If she were to tell anyone, it would be him, and he already knows she sends pictures sometimes, so she’s more than certain he’d never judge her for it.

Ingrid sleeps with a couple of guys every now and then in exchange for money – good money – and she’s not traumatised by it. It’s no big deal. It’s just sex, and £200 in the end. It’s a lot easier than pulling extra hours at the supermarket.

On paper, it’s simple and fun, and doesn’t affect her at all. But just the thought of telling her friends about it, even Sylvain, makes her anxious enough to feel it in her stomach.

He’d be shocked, and he’d try to stop her, and she _has_ to do it, at least for the time being. He’d also be pretty intent on beating the shit out of anyone who had ever come close to her, but he wouldn’t think of her any differently.

Probably.

Society looks down on people who do what she does – she’s dirty, sleazy, immoral for doing it, even though she’s more than happy. Sure, at the end of the day she’d rather not do it, but everyone has to make ends meet one way or another (she just has to make a _lot_ more of that than most people do).

And her friends are all boys anyway. There’s no way she can tell them. Even Sylvain.

“What?” He questions, reading the conflict on her face.

“…It’s nothing,” Ingrid responds, discarding her thoughts, “Just… I can’t believe what’s happening.”

“Me too,” he says, and then he gasps, “Oh. I have another one. My mum called and told me not to come home tonight because my dad’s in the mood to try and use me as a human punching bag.”

Ingrid’s heart aches at his words, and she sighs as she squeezes him in her arms, nestling her head closer into him.

“Hey,” Sylvain says, lightly slapping her back as he takes a drag, “You’re supposed to laugh. We’re laughing about all this.”

“I told Dimitri I loved him while he was sleeping,” Ingrid confesses, shutting her eyes and wincing as the words leave her mouth. Without even seeing him, she can tell exactly what face Sylvain’s pulling at her right now. There’s a silence for some seconds, and Ingrid feels as if time drags on slower than ever before Sylvain speaks again.

“Do you… love him?” Sylvain finally says, scoffing between his words.

“No,” Ingrid says on instinct, still unable to meet his eyes, “Well… I don’t know. Yes? No.”

As Ingrid continues to blather, the pair of them hear quick, heavy footsteps approaching, and both turn their heads in sync to see Felix, running towards them.

“You tell him, I’ll kill you,” Ingrid says quickly through gritted teeth, and Sylvain smirks at her. He won’t tell.

“Oh, thank God,” Felix says, bending to rest his hands on his knees as he catches his breath, “I can’t do this, you guys. I’m not doing this.”

“Oh, no worries,” Sylvain says, veiling his jealousy with sarcasm, “I’ll step in for you, I got this. Oh no, wait, I don’t got this – you’re the _only_ one he knows.”

“Shut up,” Felix spits, pacing in front of the two of them, holding a hand to his forehead, “Why me? Why did it have to be me? Both of you are better at this sort of stuff than me. I’m not doing this.”

“Felix, stop,” Ingrid says as she steps in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. Only then does she pick up on the strength of his trembling and his shortness of breath.

“I… I can’t…” Felix stammers as he struggles for words – or air, Ingrid can’t really tell. His panicked expression breaks her heart so much she almost wishes he’d just be an asshole instead.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she repeats, taking his shaking hands in her own warm ones, and by now, Sylvain is up too. He puts a hand on Felix’s back in comfort, moving in a circle motion against the tough leather of his jacket.

“My heart is pounding,” Felix says with wide eyes as he struggles to calm down. Sylvain flashes a worried look at Ingrid over Felix’s head.

“You’re having a panic attack,” Ingrid says, as calmly and clearly as possible, subconsciously nodding her head as she speaks, “Felix, we’re right here. You’re gonna be okay.”

She maintains eye contact with him, no matter how much the anxiety in his eyes makes her desperate to look away. Sylvain, clearly regretting his sarcastic comments, looks like a sad puppy dog as he pats Felix’s back.

“Fuck,” Felix exclaims, his voice hoarse and dry as his whole body continues to tremble, “I can’t make it stop!”

“What do you need?” Ingrid asks, persevering with a steady tone; adding more panic would be of no use right now. Sylvain, regretting his sarcastic comment, glances to Ingrid like a sad puppy dog as he pats Felix’s back.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Felix says through sharp breaths, and he looks down from Ingrid’s eyes in embarrassment as he stutters, “…Hold me.”

Ingrid and Sylvain peek at one another in sync, reflecting each other’s surprise.

“Are you sure?” Ingrid questions, her small hands still cupping Felix’s between their two bodies.

“Just do it!” Felix snaps as his shakes continue. “Please.”

After flashing a concerned look to Sylvain once more, Ingrid retracts her hands and gradually slides them between Felix’s shirt and jacket, until she is entirely around his waist. She holds her warm body against his as he trembles, and when she gently lays her head on his chest, she can feel how wildly his heart is thumping.

Sylvain mirrors her action, wrapping his arms around both Ingrid and Felix from behind, pressing his front to Felix’s back. Feeling his shakes begin to subside, Sylvain delicately tucks his chin into the gap between Felix’s shoulder and neck – a perfect fit.

“Okay,” Sylvain says slowly in a quiet voice, “Alright.”

Felix stands stiff between them, his throat aching, involuntarily groaning as he tries to focus on slowing his breath. He shuts his eyes as the feeling of their frames enveloping his soothes his senses, his constant trembling lessening into intermittent twitches. Ingrid lays her palms flat on Felix’s back, trying to cover as much area as she can, and she smiles softly to herself as she feels his heartbeat gradually fall into its regular pattern again.

The three of them stand there for minutes in silence, holding each other beneath the moon and a flickering orange streetlight, until Felix’s panic attack alleviates in its entirety.

* * *

After all that’s happened in the past twenty-eight or so hours, Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid can think of nothing more appropriate than going to one of their little group’s favourite spots; the cliffs.

Edelgard advised Felix and his friends to go home; they’d been at the hospital since the crash the night before, and since she was here now, they should take the opportunity to rest.

Except Felix would like to avoid his father at any cost, and Sylvain was told to not come home.

They drive back to the Fraldarius house, dropping Glenn off at home, and as Felix expected, Rodrigue is fast asleep on the sofa. The three friends take quick showers and change their clothes. Sylvain and Ingrid wear a mash up of items that belong to Felix and his brother – Ingrid in a baggy white shirt and a pair of old denim overalls that Felix grew out of, and Sylvain swapping his tank and hoodie for Glenn’s trusty Beastie Boys print jumper.

It’s about an hour’s drive to the cliffs, naturally quicker when Felix is at the wheel. On the way, they stop off at the twenty-four-hour Starbucks in the centre of the city, even though it’s the middle of the night, and all three of them think it’s way too overpriced. But Felix doesn’t drink, Ingrid doesn’t smoke, and they’d already eaten a couple hours ago – so, caffeine and a night with the icy waves it is.

The pier car park is empty, and Felix is able to park up in their favourite space – the furthest left, closest to the cliffs, and it has the best view of the ocean. He reverses into the space, and the three of them pull the back seats down, spreading the thick checkered blankets and cushions that Felix keeps in the boot for these trips.

In the middle of the night, the pier is like a scene from an apocalypse movie – dim lantern fairy lights illuminate the sturdy wooden walkway, and the café signs squeak in the gentle wind. Felix, Sylvain and Ingrid do not go to the pier, instead making their way down to their favourite spot on the lower rocks.

Their shoes slip on the damp steps engraved into the cliffside – Converse are not built for this, that’s for sure. Felix sits cross-legged on the edge of the rocks with the sea to his left, dipping his fingers in every now and then, taking pleasure in the chilly tingle of the water as it crashes gently beside him.

Ingrid takes off her overalls, her oversized shirt covering halfway down her thighs, and stands in the cold ocean, her arms spread wide as she faces the expanse instead of looking back at Felix. Soon after, Sylvain takes his shirt off and joins her, rolling his jeans up as high as he possibly can, but Ingrid pulls him in deeper anyway, and the ends of his jeans get soaked.

Felix is refreshed, watching the two of them laugh together, splashing each other with the salty water as the waves lap around their knees. He leans back on his hands, running his fingers along the rough rock, and rolls his head back, clearing his mind with the scent of the sea.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out to see a message from Edelgard, letting him know Dimitri’s uncle had arrived at the hospital. Felix sighs as he struggles to word a good reply. He just settles on ‘alright, thanks’.

“Hey, come on,” Sylvain says, having approached him on the rocks, “You can’t come all this way and not come in the water.”

For a moment, Felix glares at him in aversion, but he soon changes his mind after laying eyes on Sylvain’s exhausted-but-happy face (and Ingrid’s far behind him), the water in his hair dripping onto his cheeks and rolling down his inked arms and chest.

Kicking off his shoes and socks and leaving his leather jacket behind, Felix takes Sylvain’s outstretched hand and hoists himself up. Back at the house, he swapped his jeans out for black joggers, and he rolls the ankles up to above his knees, managing to avoid wetting them.

Wading into the water, Felix takes Ingrid’s hands as he reaches her, squeezing them before letting go again, standing in between her and Sylvain.

“Feels weird just the three of us,” Ingrid says with a smile, though her eyes express a different kind of emotion. Felix puts a hand on Ingrid’s head and ruffles her hair.

“I need to go bang on my drums,” he says on a sigh, “Like, really fucking hard. For like, at least four hours.” 

“Just in time for the fat hangover your dad’s gonna have,” Sylvain chuckles. Felix and Ingrid laugh with him.

“We’re gonna be okay, right?” Felix says once their laughs die down, avoiding looking at his friends, instead focusing his eyes on the line where the sea and sky meet each other in the distance.

With the absence of a reply, his thoughts linger to Dimitri. It was strange to be in one of their favourite places without him – in fact, in Felix’s memory, the reason the four of them love the cliffs so much is because of Dimitri’s excitement there the first time they visited.

A sick feeling brews in Felix’s stomach, thinking on how Dimitri remembers him, and not Ingrid or Sylvain. He had to be the one to tell him his father and stepmother died. The two of them would handle this so much better than he can. Felix is too prickly, too dark to be able to give Dimitri what he needs.

Ingrid is warm, and clear, and organised. Sylvain is cheery, and funny, and friendly. And Felix is… nothing like any of those things.

Plus, he knows his brain well enough to already be certain that he’ll find a way to blame Dimitri for the alcoholic pit his father is about to fall into. He knows that blame is wrongfully placed. He knows Dimitri is going to have more than enough on his plate, and he doesn’t need Felix being sulky with him to add to that.

Despite all that, Felix is still determined to try his best to be what Dimitri needs now, in every way he possibly can.

He just fears that those ways are much more limited than what Ingrid or Sylvain could do, if it was them in his position. He hopes that they don’t end up resenting him for how useless and lacking he knows he will prove to be.

Felix snaps out of his thoughts when he hears Ingrid’s small sniffle over the sound of the waves. He looks down to her, lightly pulling her into him by putting a hand on her far shoulder, and she whimpers as she lays her head on his chest.

“Hey,” Sylvain says softly as he steps in front of her, a tender look in his eyes as he holds her arms, rubbing his thumbs on her skin in comfort, “You’ve done so well, okay?”

Felix rests his head on top of Ingrid’s as she sobs. Sylvain flashes him a worried glance, which seems to have become a familiar look they see on each other’s faces in the past day.

“We’re all doing well,” Sylvain continues, patting Felix’s shoulder as well, and Felix looks up at him with fond eyes in the moonlight, “We’ll have him back. We will.”

His words are certain, but his tone and expression are nothing of the sort.

“You know what?” Sylvain says, returning to stand next to Felix again, and Ingrid stands up straight too, “We should scream.”

“What?” Felix scoffs. Ingrid leans forward to see around him, raising an eyebrow at Sylvain.

“You know, just yell. Scream. Shout. I don’t know. It feels good to get it out.”

Felix side eyes Sylvain in doubt as he nods and smiles at him in return, wiggling his eyebrows to egg him on.

“I don’t think–“ Felix starts, but he’s interrupted by a loud shout from Ingrid – wordless, an incomprehensible yell, and she jumps up and down on her feet in the water as she cries into the night.

“Yeah!” Sylvain cheers, and he joins her as she takes another breath before screaming again.

Felix winces in reaction to his loud friends on either side of him. They take each of his hands, looking at him as they yell, and the pair laugh together between their shouts.

“Come on, Felix!” Ingrid encourages, shaking his arm as she grins and throws her head back to shout again. He starts shaking his head, but looking at the two of them right now, standing in the freezing ocean in the middle of the night, their skin covered in goosebumps and their hair drenched from splashing each other – somewhere in him, something clicks.

 _What the hell_ , Felix thinks, _why not?_

And he grins at them both before looking right up at the moon, yelling as loud as he can until he runs out of air in his lungs.

**Author's Note:**

> ok now. take that emotion you are feeling right now after reading those ending parts. hold onto that emotion. and go listen to 'dreams' by the cranberries. and just think of those three, out in the chilly ocean, shouting at the top of their lungs after all that stress they've been through in the last 30 or so hours.
> 
> are you crying? i am. 
> 
> please look forward to parts 2 and 3! our lovely dedue is heavily involved later on :) 
> 
> as always, thank you so much for reading my work. i appreciate it so much. <3


End file.
